Ciaran’s Peculier [sic] Blog

A view of the world from an Irish hole

Month: December, 2009

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Our cancerous Finance Minister

We have been told, though not officially, that our dear Minister for Finance has cancer, yet the government responds in a manner more fitting to the old Soviet Empire, with silence and bad-tempered and bad-mannered diffidence. Does Brian Lenihan and those who govern us believe that they live so above the common heard that their health can be of no interest to the hoi poloi? Admittedly, it shouldn’t matter too much if those who govern us suffer from Piles, (as I am sure some do), or that some are seriously obese – we’d have to be blind not to notice. Then there are the ministers (no names mentioned) who have had a brush with venereal disease, not to mention – God forbid that we might – the minister who liked sniffing talcum power – mar dhea!

 But Lenihan in his arrogance chooses to overlook an inconvenient reality. We, the people of the country, are his employers and an employer has the right and the duty to know whether his or her employees are able to the job they have been given. Now admittedly employers should not seek information about possible treatments, unless they reasonably believe this might interfere with the employee’s ability to do their work, or have similarly reasonable fears that such illness and treatment might be dangerous to other employees, or might have implications concerning insurance etc.

 Now something like cancer is a serious ailment, and while we don’t need to know the intricate details we have a duty to know if our ministers are not enjoying rude health, and if the decisions they make may have been influenced by their indisposition. Could it be that the details of this dastardly budget were cobbled together by a man, who, instead of being on top of his game was on a cocktail of drugs?

 But then, maybe, those who govern us through a mixture of lies and slight-of-hand, believe that the benighted populace must believe that those at the top are perfect in every sense, possessing immense intellectual, physical and maybe sexual prowess.

 It’s a bit like going back to the old Celtic notion of kingship where the ruler was perfect and he was always a he – who entered into a form of congress with his territory – always personified as a female – who demonstrated her satisfaction with her consort through bounteous crops and all-round prosperity. And if the people were to learn by whispers and idle gossip that the ruler’s beauteous countenance was disfigured by anything as insignificant as a facial wart they might rebel, seeking to replace him with a better-looking exemplar of potency,

 Given the fact that we live in a free country, where anybody who dares deny this faces a custodial sentence, I can see that talk of Brian Lenihan’s cancer may become a “no-no”, not to be mentioned by anyone under pain of immortal obloquy, though it may continue to circulate on poor-quality paper in samizdat, until one night Brian Dobson appears on the evening news dressed in black, a trusted precursor to the news that a prominent member of the politburo has shaken off his miserable mortal coil, as our radio waves echo to the strains of Chopin and Tchaikovsky.

 The herd will lament my lack of Christian charity. Ah come on now Ciaran, he’s sick I will be told, Play the ball not the man etc. Hold on there. Brian Lenihan has steered through a  budget which has heaped hardship on thousands of people. Rather than being in the least remorseful for this he has come away smiling, seemingly luxuriating in the harm he has done.

 And let’s face it, cancer’s no big deal any more.  The party loyalists can always organise a whip-round to send him off to the Mayo clinic, though taking care that the current party leader doesn’t dip into the funds, and once he has been cured he can take up residence in Buswell’s hotel beside a potted plant.

 It just goes to show that our rulers are a crowd of lying, insecure nobodies.

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Why I don’t like Brian Lenihan Jr

The news that Brian Lenihan Jr may have cancer does not cause me to shed many tears. I sense how the righteous will bristle with indignation at my anger which proves to their perverted minds that I really should be in a mental hospital – a bit difficult as most have been closed.

 Brian Lenihan Jr was born with a silver cock in his mouth. As the son of a senior Fianna Fail politician he wanted for nothing. He was showered with academic honours, by amongst other my own alma Mater and thereby gained entry to the ranks of the Irish Bar, while others less blessed had to scratch around looking for briefs and not infrequently had to seek employment far from the Law.

 But I hear my detractors retort as they munch their bacon butties: “But pray look at the pig. Can it be blamed throughout its life for being born in a sty?” Perhaps not, but it can have sympathy for those who have not had such accidents of birth. And then he becomes Minister for Finance and seeks to cover himself with glory for a budget the like of which had not been seen since 1930, which penalised the poor and the vulnerable for the excesses of the rich and the incompetence of his own administration. There are many people whose Christmases have been rendered even grimmer by his wish to appear macho and take “tough” decisions.

 The blueshirt Blythe dragged out his miserable, pathetic existence for over four decades more, though a marginal figure in Irish life, disowned – rightfully – by many of his former allies, without any influence except in very limited theatrical circles. Providence may provide that Lenihan Jr won’t have to tarry so long upon life’s stage.

 I knew Brian Lenihan Jr in Trinity College. He used to sit not far from me at meetings of the Erskine Childers cumann there. He was an arrogant sot, whose every piece of verbal flatulence was imbued with the colour of wisdom and sagacity by his numerous hangers’ on. I also knew he was destined for stardom, and while I might have had my eyes similarly stellar-bound I was wise enough to sense that I was far more likely to spend my days in the gutter. Had I known that he would be instrumental in robbing me of the small amount I received as compensation for being blind and partially-sighted, (as well as insisting that I must pay a prescription charge for the medicine that is slowing down the inevitable course of my Multiple Sclerosis) I would have gone over to him and put my hands tightly around his miserable, fat neck until such time as I had choked him. But then, nature seems about to do that anyway.

 Brian Lenihan Jr should recall that not long ago in a previous post on my blog I placed a curse on him for his budget. I’m amazed, though pleased, that it has come to pass so quickly,

 … Ah God knows Ciaran, there’s no call for that type of carry on, you’ve gone OTT on this one. I sense there will be those who will say: “Ciaran, you wouldn’t like it if someone put a curse on you, would ya” to which I would shrug my shoulders and reply “You get used to if after a while.”

 But I believe in justice and it would be unjust for Brian Jr to suffer alone so I place an equal if not greater curse on his colleagues Taoiseach Brian Cowen, Minister for Social and Family Affairs Mary Hanafin and Minister for Health Mary Harney, as well as their economic guru Colm McCarthy. As for the rest of that miserable crowd at the cabinet table I can do no more than quote Pope Innocent III. “God will know his own.” To be honest, to put curses on all the bastards and bitches in this country would be tiring. I’m reminded of the joke: “What do you call a group of lawyers lined up against a wall in front of a firing squad? A start.”

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Darkness visible revisited

Readers will recall how I exposed the shameful practice of solicitor Helen Magovern who last September chose to deliver a high court summons or some other document on two people staying with a friend at 1.30 AM – a time and a manner which surprisingly did not strike other members of the legal profession as bizarre. Alas the people upon whom this was served have earned my disappointment and contempt by associating themselves with a street-walker in Belturbet who has represented herself falsely as a trainee solicitor. The friendship which they have rediscovered with her is all the stranger as not long ago they denounced her for letting them down when she did not appear on their behalf at a previous court hearing, preferring to spend her time with a male acquaintance whom I believe has been jailed for fire-arms offences in the United Kingdom. Even more recently they had hinted that she was involved in child trafficking. What is worse, probably at this shameful scrubber’s instigation, they have begun a campaign of hostile and potentially threatening text messages to a person whom, in their benighted paranoia, they believe to be working against them.  They have been seriously damaged by their ordeal, and I believe their psychological vulnerability was deliberately targeted by the Health Service Executive and others, as a lion or cheetah is attracted by the sense of fear exuded by a gazelle on the African savannah. Nevertheless, one would have thought they could see that they are going to be used by the person in question, in the same way she has used everyone else. She believes that she enjoys the protection of the not-so-Civic guards who may have been lured by the possibility of enjoying unspecified favours.

 It was evident that this couple have suffered greatly from the illegality and injustices of public bodies, but instead of turning their justified anger against those who have never meant them well, they have decided instead to conduct a campaign against an innocent individual who was lucky enough to extricate her son from the clutches of the aforementioned would-be solicitor. Such behaviour is both cowardly and wicked.

 Having said this, I still believe the behaviour of Ms Magovern on the morning in question was loathsome and morally reprehensible – I am entitled to express a belief I hope.

  It goes without saying that she was accompanied in her nocturnal frolic by members of the Gardai Siochana who obviously found the prospect of waking people up at Half one in the morning far less dangerous than dealing with drug pushers in the Navan area.

 Just in case any bright-eyed legal eagle (and I’m not talking here about the Ally McBeal of Erne Court who should seriously revise basic Contract) might think that I have violated the in camera rule regarding these people’s case, I must point out that I have commented upon matters incidental to it. I think that case law may support me in my contention that the serving of papers are always incidental to a case and not a part of it.

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Melba toast in Longford

Not cold in Longford

On Christmas morning St Mel’s Roman Catholic cathedral was reduced to a mere shell by a raging fire which broke out early in the morning – only hours after the celebration of Midnight Mass there. Such an all-embracing conflagration was shocking and suspicious. A localised blaze, perhaps occasioned by an electrical fault or choirboy dropping an unextinguished fag might have broken out but resulted in purely localised damage. Were there no smoke alarms or sprinklers? So what happened? For my part I believe the inferno was caused by the ghost of poor Anne Lovett of Granard, as a revenge on the mass-goers of the diocese of Ardagh and Clonmacnoise and their bishop, Dr Colm O’Reilly, who were so diligent in attempting the shameful events surrounding her atrocious death, It’s not just the bishops and clergy of the archdiocese of Dublin who are good at covering up the failings of their flock. PP. The reportage of this event on the RTE news site was shocking. It was as if it had been written by a chimpanzee, or a non-native English speaker. No attempt was made to “fold in” Bishop O’Reilly’s statement into a fluid, readable story. Instead each of his statements was preceded by the words: “He said” which was repeated about half a dozen times. But this is yet further proof that if you want to do something really bad the day to carry it out is Christmas Day. There won’t be a journalist working in any newsroom,.

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Fallout from Clerical sexual abuse

Dr Donal Murray has been forced to resign from the bishopric of Limerick. It is true that he was guilty of sins of omission, rather

Donal Murray - fall guy?

than commission. Donal Murray was not the worst member of the Catholic hierarchy – he was a saint compared to his boozy, Opus Dei-loving predecessor Jerry Newman. I can’t help feeling that he is being made a sacrificial lam, a fall guy if you will, for others in the body of the church and the laity.  far more deeply stained with guilt.

 The Murphy report was a very courageous and candid document that uncovered the horrors of a dishonest culture of silence and deceit. But people were shocked by the degree of what had gone on, not by the revelation that clerical abuse had occurred and been hushed up. The proverbial dogs in the street knew that.

 So the report was issued to general, and to an extent quite correct condemnation of the Catholic Church in Ireland. This occurred only weeks before the most dishonest, cruel and vicious budgets in the State. Ordinarily it might have been expected that some members of the hierarchy, as well as ordinary religious, would have spoken out against a measure that deliberately targeted already disadvantaged sections of Irish society such as the blind. However, with the Murphy report on the table, all bishops were cowed into silence; had they spoken out against the budget I could well have imagined some government minister telling them to get their own house in order first or words to that effect.

 Those who were the victims of abuse are still hurting. It’s possible the hurt will never heal. Alas, I sense that some of those in the government who have set themselves up as guardians of the rights of victims, or who have proclaimed themselves citizens of a republic, are the very people who knew full well that such abuse was rampant and systematic, but did or said nothing because they viewed the Catholic Church as too powerful and influential. It is only when they sense they can kick a dead horse with impunity that they do so with alacrity.

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The Yogi Bear Syndrome

Ever wonder why it is that I you want the poor to walk harder you pay them less , but if you want the rich to work harder you pay

Smarter than the average bear

them more? Or why it is that some poor bastard who lost his job through no fault of his own, and maybe who is trying to make a bit to feed his wife and children through the odd nixer is vehemently pursued by the latter-day witch-hunters of the social welfare department’s fraud prevention unit while the head of some parastatal flitters away public money on ludicrous expenses like first-class flights and earns only praise?  It’s because the people at the top are Ireland’s Yogi bears who are smarter than the average bear Boo-Boo. They usually have college education, but what’s more they are possessed of often super-human intellects and razor-sharp mental acuity.  They are always inspired by the long term. They have prodigious appetites for work. They are soft-spoken, sober and given to moderation in their eating habits. Most importantly they are wedded to unquestioning loyalty to the State, its laws and institutions.

 They stand out from those the bottom – those who must, according to God’s Divine law, stay at the bottom because they are not blessed with the intellects and abilities of Yogies. These individuals crawl cravenly from one welfare cheque to the next. which, no matter how generous, is never enough for them. If they are ever given jobs they skive off at the earliest opportunity to the pub or the bookies.  Their hideous, mean little lives are embellished are embellished by binge drinking and consumption of junk food, punctuated by beastly fornication so as to be able to skim yet more from hard-working tax payers in Children’s allowance handouts.  They show no desire to benefit from the helping hands offered them in charity by their betters, instead biting viciously at the claws that attempt to feed them, as hey seek all manner of ruses to defraud those whom God has placed over them, thereby forcing their rulers to devote ever more money to stamping out their fraudulent antics.….

 …NOT!

 Yogies are identifiable because of three attributes.

First, they are related to someone. They consolidate their positions with reference to another phenomenon beloved of the Irish establishment, The Itchy Arse syndrome – You scratch my arse etc.  Second, they are arrogant, and third they are incompetent being shining examples of mediocrity. In fact, it could be said that they don’t know ho to wipe their arses, and that it is through the abundant use of aftershave and perfume that this weakness in their upbringing is marked. They are dyed deep in the culture of both, of “Ah sure it could be worse”, “the hoors won’t know any better” etc. It’s because the yogies are in charge of this fair land m both at local and national level, that we have gone from the bright sun-lit uplands of the Celtic Tiger to our present miserable economic state, and the worst of it is, they are still in charge, so don’t expectant anything better anytime soon.

 That’s All Folks.

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Banking on success

This morning I head a programme on the BBC World Service about microfinance: the provision of small, unsecured loans for business and investment outside of the conventional commercial banking system.

Most of what I know about microfinance comes from my studies of the Grameen Bank in Bangladesh. This was established in 1972 by economics professor Muhammad Yunus – thereby proving that not all economics professors are heartless drunkards. Yunus found that in a village in Bangladesh many small craftspeople were sunk in poverty for, in spite of their hard work, lack of access to small amounts of capital mean that they were prey to loan sharks and usurious practices. Of course, the established commercial banks didn’t want to know such small fry. Indeed they would have been brushed away brusquely from their shining corporate headquarters. The actions of such institutions were dominated more by social prejudice than by commercial good sense. Muhammad Yunus found that by providing loans without demands for collateral, combined with education about budgeting, the recipients were able to reap the rewards of their labours. While they didn’t become rich, they were rescued from the abyss of poverty, and what’s more the repayment rate for these loans has continued to be in excess of 90 per cent.

The idea of microfinance isn’t new in the developed world, only here is has usually been called co-operative credit and is frequently

Yunus: a decent economist

 identified with the credit union movement. In Ireland this has done much good. People will remember the difficulties the Credit Union movement faced from former Minister for Finance. Charles McCreepy. It is sadly only to be expected that our government will always side with the big bankers. It’s the old golden rule: the man with the gold makes the rule.

The commercial banking system is only interested in making larger and larger mounts of money. It can then spend these on the absurdly high salaries of its higher executives, who seem to believe they have a God-given right to be rewarded for their incompetence and recklessness. They have to have oodles of cash to spend on their expensive prostitutes (5k a night is bargain-basement rates there), as well as enough money to bribe politicians and capture regulatory bodies. At this time the whole of the Irish government is a hostage of the bankers.

There are worrying clouds on the horizon for microfinance. For decades it was viewed with derision by commercial banking. However their eyes started to sparkle at the high repayment rates, which no one in the developed world could even dream of. And so big banks started to push funds in the direction of those poor, filthy, illiterate souls they had formerly seen fit only to spit on. Some in microfinance organisations worry that the apparent splurge of available funds may actually undo the spirit of thrift and frugal economy built up by them amongst their clients. If Ireland is an example, we have seen how the sudden availability of money to previously poor people often leads to waste and the squandering of resources on useless baubles,

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Cowen the cheat

I never really liked Brian Cowen. He got elected in a by-election caused when his father, Ber, got called to the great bar in the sky. Then I remember one his magisterial contributions to a Dail debate in which he described the disgraced, dishonest – and diminutive -Charles Haughey as a “man standing head and shoulders above his detractors.” Then he adopted the role of the ard fheis comic giving what would could only be described as “oul’ guff” before the main act came on. You might say I always knew he was a creep, but I never realised what a nasty, dissembling, dishonest and cowardly cheat he was until last week,

 Some weeks ago he gave a speech to pension funds managers in which he sought to cover his government in glory for the progress they had made on providing for the welfare of pensioners. He added that a country’s values could be gauged by how well it treated its most vulnerable citizens. Many commentators saw this as a “straw in the wind” indicating that pensioners were to be spared cutbacks in the budget. As a blind pensioner, in receipt of a benefit which has long been tied to old age pensions, I dared to believe that my miserable pittance would be spared and to luxuriate in a modicum of hope for the future. And then in the budget I and the thousands of blind pensioners learn that their hopes and optimisms were to be dashed, and that the blind pension had been decoupled from the old age pension which was to be left untouched. This in other to pay for the mistakes of bankers, property developers, and other bosom pals of Fianna Fail who, with their buddies in government have succeeded in bollocksing one of the most successful economies in Europe.

 So that’s how you get off Brian, attacking the blind and partially sighted, whom you know can’t fight back? Miserable bastard. You needn’t worry Cowen about feeling cold, because there’s a perpetually warm spot waiting for you in hell, where you can be joined by all your miserable colleagues, the bankers, the economists, the stock brokers, the swindlers and all your other friends.

 It is really difficult for me to put into words the level of contempt I feel for this cowardly, deceitful cretin, who, in spite of having a large pendulous lower lip still manages to talk out of both sides of his mouth. I think I must go to Australia to find some description. He is worse than a bastard: Brian Cowen was wanked up against a dunny wall by a poofter and hatched by the sun.

A dirty miserable cheat

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The missing minister

 

Minister for Agriculture Brendan Smith has gone into hiding once again, afraid to present himself to an angry populace. Indeed I might have thought that he had died but for a shameful appearance on Thousand-and-One-Knights radio, in which he never answered a question directly and presented classical symptoms of being brain-washed.

 He was due to perform a function at Drumcrave National School, which has educated many of the finest of Cavan town’s

Diarmuid Wilson TD?

 inhabitants, but Brendan – not for the first time – didn’t show up. No doubt he was closeted with Colm and the bankers. Instead it was left to senator Diarmaid Wilson to do the duties. This was a really stupid thing to do. The dogs in the street know about Senator Wilson’s ambitions to secure a seat in the Dail. Brendan seems to think that, just because he got 15k plus votes last time around, he lives an electorally charmed existence, but remember Eithne FitzGerald in the admittedly more fickle constituency of Dublin South. While Smith no doubt would eventually be able to crawl back in, I sense that if an election were held today he’d have trouble securing his deposit, even with the whole of Corlough and the Sextons voting for him. (Speaking of which, why couldn’t Martina have performed the functions? She’d have done as good, if not better job than “that thunderin’ eegit’ ‘Diarmaid.) Now far be it from me to say that this is going on, but Senator Wilson could start projecting himself as the man on the ground, with his finger on the pulse, while Deputy Smith becomes ever more distant and aloof, too closely aligned to an unpopular government and its shameful policies. Naturally, though, senator Wilson would do this while professing his complete loyalty to his party colleague. And once the election gets underway Diarmaid’s people have only to say on the doorsteps that Brendan will get enough votes and come the count he will be toast. But still he’ll get a nice fat pension and then there is always that wasteful institution which mimics pathetically the British House of Lords.

 But maybe Brendan could do himself and the rest of us a big favour and fuck off. I remember when he was John Wilson’s sidekick how he accompanied him on an official visit to Russia and Siberia, prompting the late Veronica Sharkey to quip. “a pity he wouldn’t leave him there.”.

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Thugs in power

The reduction in the blind pension was an act of sheer thuggery, no better than that of a schoolyard bully. Supposing we swallow to rubbish about correcting the public finances, the minister for Social Welfare could have annou8nced that while the Blind Pension was being cut, the draconian means test was to be relaxed or raised. As it is those who might try to make good the money that has been docked might find themselves being docked still more.

 Such a move by the government woulod have been nothing more than an empty gesture, but a gesture nonetheless. It would have cost them nothing. But oh no. They are so obsessed with appearing macho and “tough” and pandering to the types of Mary Ellen Synon, that anything except such an act of base cowardice might not have been interpreted as being sufficiently crass to cripples. There is nothing tough about attacking the disabled.

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